


GENTLE HAUNTING

by AgnesClementine



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alex-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), Gen, Happy Ending, Homophobia, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Sort Of, Well - Freeform, mcd bc, they still die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgnesClementine/pseuds/AgnesClementine
Summary: As he loses his balance, there’s a dull noise of wheels rolling over the sidewalk and in his periphery, a splash of bright colors- yellows and blues and reds and greens- so vibrant that, for a moment, Alex forgets that he’s falling.AKA "Five times Alex sees Willie while he's alive and one time they finally meet as ghosts"(This is all about near-death experiences but there's no blood and gore or graphic descriptions, in case that squicks someone.)
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 213





	GENTLE HAUNTING

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for this fandom that's not a crossover, hell yea. Got an idea for this when I nearly broke my neck on the stair yesterday evening. And now- tah-dah!
> 
> I greatly appreciate comments and I hope you'll enjoy this! :)

**I.**

Alex is seven when he breaks his first bone. It’s July and he is sprawled over the mercifully cool floorboards in the living room, pencils quietly scraping over the paper he’s drawing on while his parents drink coffee and watch TV. The air is dry and the Sun is streaming in through the thin curtains. Alex is smacking his feet in a rhythm, drawing little check-mark seagulls over the ocean- and then his father is hustling him outside, into the afternoon heat.

Alex is somewhat bothered; he wants to finish his drawing. But his dad is talking about getting some fresh air, his big hand clasped over Alex’s small, bony shoulder, and how he can’t spend the whole day in the house. He tells Alex not to play on the street and then goes back inside to his mom.

Which is not fair, really, Alex thinks faintly, digging the toe of his sneaker into the grass before he remembers his mom doesn’t like him doing that because it ruins the lawn.

He starts to sweat and goes to seek shelter under the shadow of the juniper tree. The tree bark is rough and cold against his palms and Alex leans against it. He can see into the living room through the window- his parents are not watching him- and on the other side, towards the street, the houses and yards lined neatly along the road. The tree was there before his parents moved in and now reaches past the window of his bedroom on the second floor. He can see the roof of Luke’s house from there, just a small square of it in the suburban sea of other rooftops.

He wonders- if he could reach the top of the tree- if he could see more of it.

And then he starts to climb.

It’s hard to find leverage, at first, but then he grabs onto a branch, then another, and another and another. Leaves tickle his skin and tiny branches and buds catch on his T-shirt and shorts, but the air doesn’t feel as hot in there and if he goes a bit higher he could see over Mrs. Norman’s house-

His foot slips, the flat sole of his sneaker sliding over the bark.

As he loses his balance, there’s a dull noise of wheels rolling over the sidewalk and in his periphery, a splash of bright colors- yellows and blues and reds and greens- so vibrant that, for a moment, Alex forgets that he’s falling. 

And then he hits the ground.

He bawls the whole way to the hospital, cradling his arm to his chest while his mom cradles him to hers, whispering shushing noises and kissing his hair as he heaves and gasps for air between the sobs and his dad keeps glancing at them in the rearview mirror.

He doesn’t remember the colors until the nurse brings him a cup of apple jello, green, green, green, and then forgets all about them again when he comes home and Luke and Reggie beg him into letting them draw on his cast.

**II.**

It’s Luke’s idea. The Sun has already set and there’s a slight breeze picking up, cooling the sweat that has collected in the hollow of Alex’s throat and on his brow. They are ten minutes away from Reggie’s house, but Luke stops them near the pier, Vans trampling over scarce tufts of grass, and tells them they’re going skinny dipping.

Reggie, because he’s 14 and that particular flavor of teenage boy stupid he shares with Luke, immediately agrees. Bobby grimaces at the shore and looks at Alex. And Alex looks out at the horizon, glad for the dark and feeling like his heart is trying to beat itself to death against his breastbone- because he’s been dealing and he’s kept his eyes on the floor when the boys changed their clothes in front of him and he’s kept his secret safe underneath his tongue. 

He doesn’t want to see his friends without their clothes on- except, he does and that’s exactly why he shouldn’t.

“We’ll get sick,” he says. And: “Someone could see us.” And: “What if our clothes get stolen? I’m not walking home naked.”

And Luke rolls his eyes and says back, “Then we’ll keep our underwear on.”

And then Alex pinches the skin on the inside of his wrist, staring at the sea and the sky and everything that’s not Reggie and Luke tossing their clothes on the ground before beelining it for the waves lapping at the shore.

His face burns and next to him, Bobby sighs loudly and drops his shirt on the pile on the ground. Luke and Reggie cheer because they know Bobby doesn’t like being excluded and if he joins in, so will Alex. And they are right; because they are all 14 and stupid like all teens are.

“I’m gonna dunk Reggie, you dunk Luke, deal?” Bobby asks him while they’re toeing off their shoes and socks.

Alex grins and shimmies out of his jeans. “Deal.”

The sand is damp and the water is freezing and the wind is starting to whip droplets of water in their faces. It’s creating waves that will eventually spit them out on the shore, smelling of seawater and salt- but for the moment, Alex and Bobby absolutely kick Luke and Reggie’s asses and they are all howling with laughter.

Five days later, Alex gets admitted to the hospital. They hook him up on monitors and shove a cannula in his nose so that he gets enough oxygen and can be awake when the doctor tells them it’s pneumonia. 

The guys visit him every day or so, and his mom is always pacing the hallways and the length of the room and talking to increasingly worried doctors and Alex curses his crappy health as the days bleed one into another.

And then, one evening, there’s a boy in his room. He sits by the window, moonlight reflecting like threads of silver in his long hair, and he frowns when Alex’s hazy eyes focus on him. He’s beautiful, all sharp cheekbones and warm, bronze skin like a summer day and sunlight bouncing off the surface of a lake.

Alex shifts his head to look at him better, blurry around the edges, and moves his lead-heavy hand in a tiny wave. His head feels woozy, like he’s standing on a deck of a ship, rocked every way with the waves splashing against the hull.

The boy waves back, the ring on his thumb glimmering and the bracelets on his wrist clanking against each other gently, and then Alex closes his eyes with a small smile and dreams of lakes and sun-kissed skin.

**III.**

They need time. Alex repeats this like a mantra that his life hangs upon as he wakes up, as he brushes his teeth, as he eats breakfast and lunch and dinner, as he changes into sleep clothes, and as he lays down in his bed, day after day. 

And Alex is 16 and _he’s gay_ , shamelessly, and he’s got time. He can give some of it to his parents. They’re gonna be okay.

He repeats this as a mantra too.

It’s November and his dad is working late, again, and his mom is in the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner so it overlaps with the time Dad gets home. She won’t let Alex help her.

He’s pushing back the tears, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat as he makes his way up the stairs. He’s almost at the top, just one more stair, when Mom’s cat jumps out from around the corner. 

It’s an orange tabby and Mom got it after Alex came out to them. One day, Alex came back from school to find her petting it in the armchair, ignoring his hello while her fingers carded through soft-looking fur.

Alex doesn’t know her name because Mom never told him and she keeps finding excuses, ways- however subtle- to keep him from petting her while he’s in the house.

But at night, after the lights go out, the cat makes her way to Alex’s room to curl up against his side while he catches up on homework, and Alex has, somewhat spitefully, named her Whitney.

Now, Whitney brushes against his ankle as she zooms down the stairs, making him spin on his heels and miss a step.

He pitches forward, then backward, and as a twinge of pain sparks up in his ankle, he swears there’s a skateboard at the bottom of the stairwell. He feels a phantom sensation ghosting over his forearm before it settles between his shoulder blades, like it’s pressing into his skin, dripping syrupy-thick down the column of his spine, between his vertebrae. And then his hands finally close around the top of the banister, preventing his fall.

His hip thwacks against the side of it and he stands there, breathing hard and staring at the empty bottom of the stairwell, until Whitney meows at the door like she’s watching somebody leave.

**IV.**

Alex has time, but he doesn’t have the patience. 

It’s another dinner where his parents are living a different reality from him, asking about grades and school and girls and _pretending_.

But Alex is done with pretending; done pretending he’s something he’s not, done pretending it’s going to be okay in the end, done pretending that they’re not all just breaking each others’ hearts here. Alex is breaking theirs by being gay. And they are breaking his by wanting to fit him into a neat little box that suits their wants, not caring about how much they'll break him to make him fit in.

He’s packed and leaving before all the dishes have left the table. He doesn’t say goodbye and his parents don’t try to stop him.

Luke ran away just after Christmas. And now, after New Year, Alex tosses his bag next to his in the loft and then spends the night sitting between him and Reggie where they’re all squeezed in with Bobby on the couch downstairs. And he expects the waterworks to start any minute. And his friends do too, he knows. 

Alex gets overwhelmed by small things, insignificant and silly and stupid, and by big things, heartwrenching and nerve-wracking. Really, there’s not much that he doesn’t get overwhelmed with. And so they expect tears; quiet tears because Alex is only pouring himself out when he’s hitting the drums and belting out Luke’s lyrics with his best friends. 

But the tears don’t come on the couch with all of them or on the roof with Bobby or in the dark when he’s talking to Luke in hushed voices.

They come in Reggie’s bathroom because Reggie and Bobby have been sneaking them off to their houses in intervals for decent beds and showers.

It’s quiet in the house because Reggie’s parents aren’t home, so Alex bites down on his fist to stifle the sobs, his forehead pressed against the tiles as warm water cascades over his shoulders and down his back. His ribcage is stuttering like he’s something fragile and young, a newborn animal still unaware of its existence but already terrified. He cries until his chest hurts and his throat burns and there are teeth indents in the flesh of his hand.

Then, when he’s got no more tears to cry, he turns, reaching for a towel behind the shower curtain, and loses his footing. His hands scramble for the curtain and pull it open; for the cold tiles and leave smudges of his hand in the condensation as he goes down.

His head smacks against the edge of the tub and he catches just the briefest flash of long, brown hair fanning out like someone’s turning their head, and the grey cracked helmet in the fogged up mirror above the sink before Reggie is bursting through the door.

Reggie shouts about the noise and “ _Ohmygod_ , are you okay?” and Alex shouts about privacy and “Get out!” and Reggie says, “I’ve seen you naked before, you dramatic jerk,” and then he leaves when Alex throws a wet towel at his face.

Later, Alex- his heartbeat jack-hammering in his temple and his chest never feeling lighter in his life- lets him poke at the bruise and press a frozen bag of peas over it before they both start laughing.

**V.**

The night is cold and wet and miserable. But Alex’s hands are still tingling with aftershocks of playing for soundcheck on the stage at the Orpheum when he drops down on the ratty couch next to Luke. There’s a spring digging into his back and he can’t stop smiling when Luke says confidently, “Eat up, boys! ‘Cause after tonight, everything changes.”

Whenever he speaks like that, Alex can’t help but wonder, however silly it might be, if Luke can see their future splayed in front of his eyes in a way that the rest of them can’t.

The street dog tastes...off. But Alex eats it because Luke and Reggie are eating theirs. And eventually, what started as a knot of anxiety in the pit of Alex’s stomach turns into a feral creature, clawing at his insides. It’s like someone is trying to scrape out his guts, tear him up from inside and he slumps into Luke, listening to Reggie’s groaning and rasping breaths. 

Someone asks if they are okay. Someone calls the ambulance.

Alex’s head is swimming; the only constant is Luke bleeding warmth into his side as the reality distorts around him while his stomach is trying to digest itself. He can’t breathe, there’s not enough air around them and his ribs refuse to expand. Through the dull, muted sounds everything has turned into, Alex hears footsteps, sharp as bells, hitting against the asphalt. Skateboard leaned against the makeshift table in front of them, helmet clutched between long fingers. When he looks up, the boy with long hair is already staring at him, his face going in and out of focus.

Luke grips his wrist and the boy frowns. Alex is not sure what’s happening anymore.

He’s dying, he thinks. His body grows numb and it’s hard to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want to close them yet. 

He’s 17 and he just ran out of time- but it doesn’t matter because there’s a boy trying to hold his hand.

**VI.**

Alex is an island. He’s situated in the middle of the sea, far, far away from the shore. The Sun and Moon change positions in the sky, and the water laps at his body, but Alex just stands, day after day, unchanged because he’s an island of pale, dead rocks. 

Sunset Boulevard is bustling with people. It’s all noise and colors and life bursting out of everything through strained seams. Alex doesn’t have the seams. Because he doesn’t have a body. Because he’s a ghost.

His thoughts tangle and twist, strangling each other and him- and then he’s falling.

He hits the ground hard, palms slapping against the pavement and unfamiliar weight pressing him down. He’s sure his brain bounced against the walls of his skull at least twice. He ponders a nosebleed he would have if he was alive and then the weight moves and a hand settles over his shoulder blade.

“Oh,” a voice says, softly, “there you are.”

Alex squints against the Sun that’s creating a halo around the boy’s head, and wonders if this is heaven, long overdue.

“ _You._ ”

A smile, brilliant, eye-crinkling. “Me,” the boy confirms. “It’s nice to finally meet you properly.”

He holds out his hand to Alex. “I’m Willie, “he says.

When their hands touch, Alex feels something slot into place and starts thinking that, maybe, he’s not an island. Maybe, he’s a haunted house.


End file.
